Micro-Algae In CARS Will Clean Up Tar Sands, Suck CO2, Make Biofuel, Save World
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 05. 5.08
The Alberta Tar Sands are evil, but they keep Canada rolling in green by keeping America rolling, so they aren't going away soon. If they could only do something about their greenhouse gas emissions, those vile bird-killing tailing ponds, and the amount of fuel needed to run them.
Welcome CARS, the humorous abbreviation for a Carbon Algae Recycling System, being developed by the Alberta Research Council and nine other research corporations, which kills all those birds with one stone. (sorry, inappropriate metaphor) It reminds us of the dénouement of the Cat in the Hat, were he picks everything up and makes everything right.
As the cute video shows, exhaust CO2 is diverted from the exhaust gases and pumped into the tailing ponds, where micro-algae eat it all up, along with the heavy metals and leftover hydrocarbons. Result? algae that are harvested and turned into biofuels. From the press release:
“In essence, the goal of CARS is to fast-track Mother Nature’s own process of using plants to soak up greenhouse gases that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere,” says John McDougall, vice-chairman for I-CAN from the Alberta Research Council. “Algae growth research isn’t new, but our goal is. Other algae projects are aimed at creating bio-fuels. The goal of CARS is to provide industry with a sustainable, affordable way to deal with their greenhouse gas emissions.”
The base case chosen for the preliminary CARS work is sized to consume up to 30 per cent of the greenhouse gases produced by the average 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant. “That’s the base case, and we’ll work upwards to larger capacities from there,” says McDougall, . He predicts the sale of byproducts like ethanol or fertilizer from harvesting the algae would help offset the cost of operating the CARS algae systems.
CARS micro-algae, Alberta Research Council
MacDougall is excited. "There aren't that many things that have the right buttons on them, but this one seems to have them." Tyler Hamilton at the Star is too, and concludes: "Carbon capture and geological sequestration. Char production and biosequestration. Turning CO2 into baking soda and other usable materials. Growing CO2-sucking algae to make biofuels and clean up toxic pools. Certainly we've got options -- and we're going to need them all." ::Clean Break
Somebody help me feel good about this. 1) Tar Sands are processed, creating carbon. 2) Carbon is used to generate bio-diesel, so it's not released into the atmosphere. 3) BUT... then bio-diesel is consumed, presumably releasing captured carbon into the atmosphere. So the good news is that we get more bang (fuel) for our buck (carbon), but we aren't actually preventing *any* of the carbon from reaching the atmosphere.
Unless I'm missing something?
So let me get this process straight.
They're going to take the CO2 produced by the tarsands->gasoline plants, run it through a biodigester, take the algae produced, and then sell it as biofuel?
Where the biofuel will subsequently be burned and the CO2 originally from the processing plant will be released into the air? I call that blame shifting, not fixing the problem.
The only way this process will "save the earth" is if the algae produced in this manner is buried in the ground forever, putting back the carbon we originally extracted from the ground in the first place. If the plan goes ahead in the manner they describe, then 50 years from now we'll be stupidly wondering why the earth is *still* getting warmer at an exponential rate in spite of "all that green stuff we did".
Honestly...Alberta is a sinking ship. We have a premier who can be bought and sold and a population of rednecks who think that's OK.
Every "green" initiative in this ridiculous province, is funded by horrible oil companies, trying to help their image. Our premier is going on a publicity tour in Europe to debunk the "Greenpeace Myth" about the tar sands. So basically, the people of Alberta get to pay for the honorable Eddie Stelmach to vacation across the globe spreading lies about one of the WORST industries in this world.
I hate everything about Alberta right now, and this story didn't help my outlook. Ridiculous.
Actually, I believe the process has a net reduction in CO2 because as shown in the video algae consumes huge volumes of CO2 as it grows daily and can do so by siphoning from industrial exhausts. The biofuel made out of algae has an extremely high energy input to output ratio (as someone said above), and a substantial CO2 savings over gasoline, although I can't remember how much.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/biofuels/biofuels-text
Worth reading.
The tarsands are also stripping vast expanses of land in the open-pit bitumen mines.
The carbon emissions are not the biggest ecological villain in Northern Alberta
any biofuel created from this source is fuel that doesnt have to come from somewhere else. Its not a perfect system- but it does improve an inefficient system that isnt going away anytime soon.
Just remember a couple of important aspects of this process; the CO2 "eaten" by the algae is released again when it is used as biofuel (no matter how much is eaten it is ALL released) and secondly the process to turn it from algae to a useable fuel or other product takes a large amount of fossil fuel to be effective.
In essence this doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it just delays it for the benefit of the company because it helps them appear more "green" . What a way to take advantage once again of the green movement by an amoral company.
It amazes me that big oil is doing anything.
Look at Exxon's website. You will find vast amount of environmental info. They have known since 2006 (better than any Republican apparently) that the world is being burnt up by CO2. Check it out! They know all the stats and they don't care.
If you read their reports, it is depressing. They point out that nothing can replace oil -- production rates on any alternative source are simply too slow and too small to compete for decades.
Let them try, by all means, this reduction is a good start. But if i could help it, i would never touch their stuff ever again.
This is still better than what is going on, even if it's not perfect. if we can switch some of our oil consumption to biodiesels that isn't working against the world's poor, while also helping to save some of nature's largest resorves of natural oil (like preventing the need the dig oil in natural parks such as alaska), we're still (somewhat) better off. However, much better, of course, would be to close all those harmful coal plants.
I think this is a noble effort to reduce C02 emissions and at the same time provide feedstock for biodiesel.
We are addicted to hyrdocarbons and thus we need solutions to help rid ourselves of that addiction. If we go cold turkey, which very very few are willing to do, then we could do without hydrocarbon and it's emissions. However we all enjoy the comforts it provides.
In the meantime, while we figure out how to do without hydrocarbon, let's appluad the efforts of those trying to find solutions and reduce emissions.
Thank goodness for the Alberta Tar Sands. we need all the resourses we have. that is why they are there.. I want gas at $ 1.00 a gallon again, so i can take a vacation with my family.